JCB celebrates 60 years of its iconic backhoe loader
Australian construction equipment distributor, JCB CEA is celebrating the 60th birthday of the iconic JCB backhoe loader.
In the picture: JCB Chairman Lord Bamford leads the festivities, as the company celebrates 60 years of production of its backhoe loaders.
JCB founder Joseph Cyril Bamford manufactured the original JCB backhoe in 1953, creating for the first time a single machine with a front shovel and rear excavator arm.
The concept developed rapidly, with the launch of the Hydra-Digger in 1956 and the heavier, more powerful JCB 4 in 1960. By the 1980s JCB equipped backhoe loaders with powershift transmissions, four-wheel drive, extending dipper arms, and multi-purpose front buckets, which brought increased performance and productivity for operators.
Today, backhoe loaders are the fourth most popular machine in terms of global plant equipment sales, despite the evolution of new and competitive products over the past 60 years, with JCB’s backhoe the biggest seller in the world.
Caterpillar unveils new 336E Hybrid excavator
The hybrid design has the potential to improve fuel efficiency by as much as 50 percent (measured in tonnes per litre), compared to the previous 336D model, on high-production applications, Caterpillar claims.
The machine is also environmentally friendly, meeting stringent US EPA Tier 4 Interim emissions standards, as well as offering automatic after-treatment regeneration.
Caterpillar Asia-Pacific Marketing Manager Phil Pollock said that Caterpillar was confident that this new hybrid solution would make a major difference in saving customers time and money.
“Caterpillar has developed, built and tested electric hybrid excavators in the past but until now we hadn’t found a hybrid solution that we believe will deliver for customers like the 336E H,” Pollock said.
“The new Hybrid hydraulic technology on the 336E H is a simple, robust system that delivers excellent power density. It is the product of five years of development, refinement and customer testing in the harshest conditions."
To achieve added fuel savings, the design of the 336E H is based upon three building block technologies:
- Conserve with the Cat Electronic Standardised Programmable (ESP) pump, which manages engine power and conserves fuel by smoothly transitioning between the hydraulic hybrid power sources, engine and accumulator.
- Optimise with the Cat Adaptive Control System (ACS) valve, an intelligent system that optimises performance by managing restrictions and flows, to seamlessly control machine motion with no loss of power, and to ensure operators experience no difference in control, hydraulic power or lift capability.
- Reuse with the hydraulic hybrid swing system, allowing energy to be reused, by capturing the excavator’s upper structure swing brake energy in accumulators, and then releasing it during swing acceleration.